The Claremont Unified School District, its board members, superintendent and two principals are being sued over the cancelation of field trips to Riley’s Farm in Oak Glen, and they may not be the last.

The business and principal shareholder James Patrick Riley filed a lawsuit in federal court this fall saying the defendants infringed on his First Amendment rights to free speech by forcing the cancellation of field trips following his “sharply worded and passionate” remarks on social media. The cancellations, the Oct. 12 suit adds, are hurting business.

A motion to dismiss from the defendants, which is scheduled to be heard Monday, Dec. 10, in U.S. District Court in Riverside, says “parents objected to posts in which Mr. Riley made misogynistic references to a woman’s ‘bosoms,’ compared the Black Lives Matter movement to the ISIS terrorist organization and made light of ‘white supremacy.’”

Parents asked that their children be excused from attending trips to the farm, the motion adds, and in response district schools decided to drop the site as a field trip destination.

Superintendent James Elsasser, who is named in the suit, said Friday the district does not comment on pending litigation.

The suit alleges people within the district along with others outside the district “agreed to act in concert to induce public agencies – in particular, the school districts who patronize Riley’s Farm’s field trip business, including (Claremont Unified) – to retaliate against Plaintiffs for Mr. Riley’s First Amendment-protected expression.”

Several school districts have put a moratorium on field trips to the farm, said Riley’s attorney, Thomas J. Eastmond. He declined to list the names of the other districts, some of whom are discussing settlements, he said.

“Private boycotts are fine,” Eastmond said.

“Public agencies do not have that power,” he added. “Public agencies cannot retaliate against an employee or an independent contractor based on their exercise of free speech.”

The lawsuit is asking for at least $125,000 for damage to Riley’s reputation, $800,000 for mental and emotional distress, and almost $10 million in lost future revenue. It also seeks an injunction to stop the defendants from enforcing or adopting policies to discourage patronage at the business.

The motion to dismiss states that neither the district nor individual defendants “have curtailed or coerced the free expression of either Mr. Riley or Riley’s Farm. At most, CUSD administrators simply exercised their broad discretion by initiating and carrying on alternative educational programs which better meet the needs of CUSD students.”

The lawsuit notes that half of the business’s $4.2 million yearly revenues come from field trips, and that since the uproar over the posts started in September it may have lost 33 to 50 percent of its field trip business extending into its busy spring season.

“This is not only something they are willing to fight for, but they have to fight for,” Eastmond said.

A lifelong Inland resident, Jennifer Iyer started working in journalism at The Press-Enterprise in 2000. She has written (and shot photos for) stories on wildflowers, camping with a dog, and many community events, and as a videographer covered wildfires and war games to blimp rides and camel racing from Temecula to Big Bear Lake, Twentynine Palms to Jurupa Valley.